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This Is How We Do It

I’ve always cared for numbers much less than letters, and now I have a new reason to not favor them, thanks to the advanced classes at Lincoln BJJ this week! It started on Monday after our warm-ups across the mat, when Professor Greg cryptically said “40, 60, 80”, and we all asked “Wha?”, so he explained “40 push-ups, 60 squats, and 80 triangles”. In a typical advanced class, our numbers on those are 25, 0, and 50, so I was still feeling it when I went to class last night, and I was really hoping I wouldn’t hear those numbers again, or even worse, that they would multiply, but they didn’t, exactly. Instead, Greg had us do 150 triangles and 150 supermans (broken into groups of 50 each), and I was just relieved there were no squats, but someone in class asked The Professor if he was mad at us, and he insisted he wasn’t!

In the early days of LBJJC, I quickly learned that if I had a complaint about how hard The Prof was working us, it was best to just keep it to myself. One memorable occasion from back then involved someone griping about the intensity of the workout, and Greg responded in a very matter-of-fact way “This is Tinguinha BJJ, this is how we do it. If you don’t like it, there’s the door”. One time when I said my entire body hurt, he replied “Welcome to Jiu-Jitsu”, and just on Monday he told someone to “Suck it up, Cupcake”. So, I wouldn’t consider this to be complaining about the number of exercises, and while I was doing them I even kept telling myself “I love this, it’s fun!” (which isn’t exactly true, but it helped me to keep going, because it was hard! ;).

One of the numbers that I did like from class last night was the number of people in attendance, because at 16 (including Greg), I’m pretty sure it was the biggest advanced class I’ve ever been to at Lincoln BJJ Center. There was a black belt, four purples, eight blues, and three whites, and Professor Greg pointed out that we had more students in that one class last night than there were enrolled in the entire school when we first opened up a couple of years ago, so he must be doing something right!